Man faces rare charge for possessing 'magic mushrooms'

June 4, 2012|By Alexia Campbell, Sun Sentinel

Fish and wildlife officers found an unusual scene recently when they boarded a sailboat gliding without lights near Peanut Island: Mushrooms growing in three buckets, 18 jars packed with fungal colonies and several plastic storage containers filled with spores.

With the help of an iPad and her wildlife training, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Lt. Annie Plastic recognized the brown mushrooms with white stems as the psychedelic Psilocybin cubenis species. The 24-year-old man on the boat told the lieutenant he grew the mushrooms from spores purchased in California.

"He had colony upon colony of mushrooms," Plastic said. "He had everything from A to Z."

Police in Palm Beach County rarely come across people with "shrooms," but wildlife officers know they will find "shroom hunters" searching for mushrooms on cow droppings after it rains heavily for a few days. The recent arrest near Peanut Island is one of just a few cases local police and wildlife authorities have handled in the past few years.

The Poison Information Network got eight calls about mushroom overdoses in South Florida during the first three months of 2012. That's compared with 45 calls about oxycodone overdoses.

Fish and wildlife officers charge mushrooms hunters with removing plant life from a wildlife management area, Plastic said, as it's hard to prove they intend to use the fungi to get high.

Two hallucinogenic chemicals found in the "magic mushrooms" are Schedule I illegal drugs, in the same category as heroin and cocaine. More than 185 species of mushroom contain the illicit psilocybin and psilocin chemicals, according to the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Each ounce sells on the street for $60 to $200, Plastic said.

Allapattah Flats Wildlife Management Area near Stuart is a popular place for them to go digging, the commission said.

On May 15, a Fish and Wildlife officer arrested a Boynton Beach man and a Deerfield Beach man with a sack filled with freshly picked mushrooms. The men said they were looking for edible fungi.

"Due to the time of year and the rain the area had received ... I knew the individuals were almost certainly picking psilocybin," the officer wrote in an arrest report.

In September, Boca Raton police arrested a group of youths in a parking garage at 621 NW 53rd St. after catching them with marijuana in their car, police said.

Among those in the group was a 22-year-old man who hid a plastic bag with 11 grams of mushrooms in his rectum, according to the arrest report. He eventually told police about it in jail and was charged with possession of hallucinogenics.

Boca Raton police rarely find people with the psychedelic mushrooms, said Mark Economou, spokesman for the department.

"Prescription drugs are really the drug of choice," he said.

The few who do prefer fungi "tripping" will eat the dried mushrooms or brew them in a tea to mask the bitter flavor, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.

The hallucinations are similar to those from eating mescaline or peyote, the DEA said, and users are unable to tell "fantasy from reality."